The editors of RevolutionSF explore their love/hate
relationship with Star Wars. What do youlove/hate about it?

Proof That The Phantom Menace Sucks

The juvenile atmosphere. From the goofy pit droids during the podracing scene
to little "Annie's" painfully lame wisecracks while attacking the
droid control ship to pretty much Jar-Jar's entire existence, Lucas seemingly
worked damn hard at totally destroying any sense of drama, tension,
or dark foreshadowing in this movie. (Kevin Pezzano)

The fact that Phantom Menace is effectively a remake of Return
of the Jedi — by far the weakest of the original trilogy —
is unforgivable. Lucas even stoops to repeating the three-pronged finale: Annoying
alien allies fighting on the planet's surface? Check. Outmatched Jedi in a ferocious
lightsaber battle? Check. Outnumbered fighter pilots flying inside the Death
Star/Battleship to destroy the main reactor. . . . (Jayme Lynn
Blaschke)

Irritating, idiotic, pointless Jar-Jar Binks. (Peggy Hailey)

Jar-Jar Binks, the Stepinfetchit of Tattooine. (Mark Finn)

All Jedi have midichlorians. (Mark Finn)

Midi-filkin'-chlorians. How did we get from a mystical/spiritual Force that's
in all of us to a scientific/genetic trait that only a few special people have?
How very Master Race, Mr. Lucas. (Peggy Hailey)

I, and I daresay we, had freely and willfully accepted the Force as a universal
power source that these people could use if they just focused. This movie says
it's just a really, really helpful disease. And it can knock chicks up. (Joe
Crowe)

The Force doesn't work on Watto. Why not? Why would the Force, which is in
all things, not work on something that looks like those bugs on the commercial
that holler "RAAAAAAID!!!" (Joe Crowe)

An elected queen? (Jayme Lynn Blaschke)

The cushy life of being a slave on Tattooine, where all you have to do all
day is build your own personal robot butler and tinker on your hotrod racer.
Yeah, Anakin's a real victim here. (Jayme Lynn Blaschke)

Children who are just as capable if not moreso than the adults around them.
(Mark Finn)

Wait. Vader built WHO?! This was a silly continuity error when George Lucas
should have easily known better. There were only six other hours of movies he
had to scan before he wrote this stuff. (Joe Crowe)

. . . and thought, "Yep, that line's a keeper." How the
hell does that happen? (Shane Ivey)

"Are you an angel?" (Shane Ivey)

Four words: Star Wars fart joke. (Jason Myers)

"Whoa! We DO suck!"

Greg Proops as the podrace announcer. Now, I like Greg Proops. He's just massively
inappropriate for that role. (Kevin Pezzano)

The offensive offensive racial stereotypes. And in this day and age! I, for
one, am appalled. Nevermind that African-American actor Ahmed Best’s inspirations
for Jar-Jar were Buster Keaton and Jerry Lewis, two white guys. Nevermind that
any dialogue spoken in English in a movie made by earthlings is necessarily
going to be a pastiche of earth’s previously existing speech patterns.
Nevermind that, like purple Teletubbies, the alien accents in The Phantom
Menace are Rorshach tests that reveal more about the mind-set of those
who take offense than about the supposed offense itself. Watto has a big nose
and is greedy. Why, he must be a Jew! But, wait. Watto has a big nose and lives
in the desert. He must be an Arab! Watto’s a big-nosed Jew-Arab! When
you look back on it, the release of The Phantom Menace should have
marked a new era in Israeli-Palestein relations. They should have stopped fighting
amongst each other and focused on their true enemy: George Lucas. (Jason Myers)

The scale of the final battle. To small to be really engrossing, yet too big
to really be a personal, character-driven struggle, the fight against the droid
army and the destruction of the droid control ship just seems sorta . . .
pointless. (Kevin Pezzano)

All flash, no substance. When I left the original Star Wars, I remembered
story and characters and dialogue as well as visuals. When I left Episode
I, I thought, "Well, at least it was pretty." (Peggy Hailey)

Proof That The Phantom Menace Rocks

The utter and complete fear that the Neimoidians express when they realize
their opponents are Jedi — followed very quickly by the movie showing
us just how much that terror is justified when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan start kicking
ass and taking names. (Kevin Pezzano)

The acting. Yes, I said the acting. Rewatch it, and instead of passing a kidney
stone every time Jar Jar comes on screen, check out Ewan McGregor as he channels
Alec Guiness, Natalie Portman’s vulnerable but eerily capable woman-child
queen, Liam Neeson’s gruff father-figure Jedi, and, finally, Ian McDiarmid,
who has been shamefully under-praised for his chilling and just plain brilliant
dual performance as Senator Palpatine and Darth Sidious. (Jason Myers)

Young Obi-Wan as played by Ewan McGregor. (Mark Finn)

Ewan McGregor: Best Star Wars actor ever since the first guy to play
his character. (Shane Ivey)

Certain casting choices, like Ewan MacGregor as a brash young Obi Wan, Natalie
Portman as a smart and spunky princess,and Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu (even
though he doesn't get to do anything but talk). (Peggy Hailey)

Podracing with Tusken Raiders. (Mark Finn)

The starship designs. From the graceful elegance of the Naboo fighters to
the massive utilitarian design of the Trade Federation battleships, the look
and feel of the spacecraft in this movie succeeded in making the viewer feel
this was a different era from the original trilogy. (Jayme Lynn Blaschke)

The Natalie Portman/Kiera Knightly switcheroo. Hey, it doesn't matter if you
get the queen or the decoy, you're still a winner! (Jayme Lynn Blaschke)

R2D2 showing just why he's the one being throughout all three movies to always
know exactly what he's doing when everyone else around him is utterly lost and
would be completely boned without him. (Kevin Pezzano)

Darth Maul's dual-blade reveal. I mean, damn. We thought he was pretty bad-ass
when out of the blue he jumped all over Qui-Gon's grill out in the desert. Then
the pose itself was just bad as can be. Then — wait, no, it can get a
whole lot badder, folks. . . . (Shane Ivey)

Darth Maul vs. two Jedi, double saber or not, didn't seem very fair, but I
bought it as soon as it started going down. Finally, a super-fight between what
appeared to be athletes instead of plodding stuntmen. (Joe Crowe)

A lightsaber duel so good it made Luke and Vader look like polio victims swinging
their walkers at each other. (Shane Ivey)

When all three fighters are trapped by the red forcefield things, Darth Maul
paces like a caged tiger, Obi-Wan hops up and down impatiently, and Qui-Gon
sits down for a bit of meditation. Totally wordless, totally in character, and
totally surprising given all the hamhanded dialogue in the rest of the movie.
(Kevin Pezzano)

"Duel of the Fates." For all Phantom Menace's faults, it's
worth sitting through the movie simply to hear this gorgeous choral piece, which
is easily the best addition to the Star Wars musical canon since the
Imperial March. (Jayme Lynn Blaschke)

If I must praise Gungans, let it be for using catapults as they unleashed hell
on those droids that look like their little butts were jutting up in the air.
(Joe Crowe)

The sense of scale. (Peggy Hailey)

The return, after 15 years, of that goose-bump-inducing magic that is Star
Wars. It’s there in a podrace sequence that packs more excitement
into 15 minutes than most summer movies have in the full 90. It’s there
when Darth Maul pulls off his hood and ignites his lightsaber. It’s there
when Obi-Wan’s voice breaks on the word “Master” as Qui-Gon
lies dying. It’s there when Mace Windu says, “But which was destroyed,
the master, or the apprentice?” and the camera comes to rest on Senator
Palpatine. (Jason Myers)